KLOPSTOCK, Friedrich Gottlieb (1724-1803), German poet, was born at Quedlinburg on the 2d of July 1724. He was educated partly at the gymnasium of his native town, partly at Schulpforta. After studying theology for a short time at Jena, he went in 1746 to the university of Leipsic, where he made the acquaintance of Cramer, Schlegel, Rabener, and other young men of letters, who were conducting the Bremische Beiträge. At Schulpforta Klopstock had become conscious of a talent for poetry, and had resolved to write a great epic. His original intention was to make Henry the Fowler his hero, but this was soon abandoned in favour of the scheme to which he devoted the best years of his life. The first three cantos of The Messiah, which were planned in prose in Jena, he finished in Leipsic; and they were published anonymously in the Bremische Beiträge in 1748. The name of the author was soon known, and Klopstock suddenly found himself the most popular poet of his generation. In 1748 he accepted the position of tutor to a private family in Langensalza, and in 1750 he went to Zürich, whither he was invited by Bodmer, the translator of Paradise Lost, who had been deeply impressed by the early cantos of The Messiah. In Zürich Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the recommendation of his minister Count Bernstorff, an invitation to settle in Copenhagen with a pension of 400 thalers. The invitation was accepted; and on his way to the Danish capital he met at Hamburg the lady who, in 1754, became his wife—Margarethe (Meta) Moller, an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. She died in 1758; and after her death Klopstock edited her writings, which give evidence of a tender, sensitive, and deeply religious spirit. In 1771 Klopstock left Copenhagen, and followed his friend ...